October BSSA - Quality of Seismometer Deployments

My big thick BSSA has come in, and it has some interesting articles. As usual, most articles seem to be above me, but I can make sense of a few.

The star article is about earthquake detection, and evaluating 'completeness'. You can always slap together a seismometer array, but how good is it? Usually, it means you can easily detect earthquakes within the array, but the stuff outside becomes more difficult.


Using the methodology in the paper, they can come up with a completeness map for any given day.

Very cute. My own opinion is that this type of 'completeness' is a very small part of the picture. You also need accuracy in location, as well as a good estimate of depth. It's a bit like the big nuclear collider that never works; you have an idea of how much energy you need before you can discover the 'next big thing'. Maybe this new Italian-run (ha, ha!) CERN collider has it, but Hawking thinks it doesn't.

I have the same idea for seismometer arrays, in that you need a certain quality and density to fully bring together fundamental rock mechanics physics, and earthquake source mechanics. Without it, you are whistling in the dark. I don't think the US will ever get there.